French Cooking

The other night I watched the film Julie and Julia.

If you haven't seen the film, here is a quick review;
Review by Perry Seibert "Everybody needs inspiration. Julie Powell wanted to be a writer, but not until she challenged herself to make every recipe in Julia Child's culinary bible Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year -- and blogged about it -- did she find her voice. Her memoir about that year, Julie & Julia, comes to the big screen thanks to writer/director Nora Ephron, a filmmaker who was in dire need of some inspiration.The movie stars a pair of formidably talented actresses: Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Adams plays Powell, an English lit grad who struggles through her stressful government job fielding phone calls from people who are having medical problems because of 9/11. Cooking provides her with her only form of anxiety relief aside from her devoted husband (Chris Messina), who suggests she combine her love of preparing food with her desire to write. He sets her up with a blog, and she begins her quest to perfect beef bourguignon, poached eggs, and aspic -- and to share her journey with the world. As she learns more and more about Julia Child (Streep), a former government employee herself, the beloved chef becomes Julie's personal hero.Ephron shifts back and forth between Julie's story, and a biopic of Julia Child during the time she and her devoted husband (Stanley Tucci) lived in Paris. During that period, she learned to cook, met her future co-authors, and created the book that would save Julie four decades later."

After watching the film, I decided that I was a little bored with my dinner recipes and I was going to change them up. So I decided that I was going to take a stab at making french food.
In the morning, I got on the libraries site and requested a few books on French cooking and also went down to the library. I picked up a few books and brought them home.
My first initial thoughts were, I'm not going to kill a lobster and oh no, we can't eat ham. I thumbed through a few of the books desperate to find the one meal that I could eat and wouldn't get my children of 9 and 7 years old to put their noses up in the air.
For my first night, I was going to make Cabillaud En Papillote or Black cod in parchment with Pistou De Pousses De Basilic Vert or Baby green basil pesto, Pommes Savoyarde or Scalloped pototoes in chicken broth with cheese.
I drove to 6 different stores trying desperately hard to locate the ingredients, boy was it not easy and it really left me in disgust once again over the American diet. Americans in general eat like complete crap and the store shelves show it.
I prepared the meal according to the directions, taking a few sneaky bites of the cheese and placed the potatoes in the oven 1st, 15 minutes later, I stuck the fish in and noticed the potatoes were no where near being ready, so I covered them. 15 minutes later, when the fish were supposed to be done, I noticed that they were still raw. So I turned the oven temperature up. Out come the girls. "What is that yucky smell?" one of them said. I think, oh great they already don't like it.
We all sit down to dinner about 1 hour after it was supposed to be done. But, it looks and smells fantastic. My husband and I both enjoy everything. My oldest didn't like the fish, but likes the potatoes as well as my youngest.
All in all a good french meal. One that I will be making again.

Bon apetetite!

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